


Face in the mirror

by aurora_denian



Series: When you're not looking [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Acceptance, F/M, Guilt, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_denian/pseuds/aurora_denian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When did she become this?  Hard and battle ready?  What happened to the girl she used to be?</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>SHIELD takes it's toll on everyone eventually, and Darcy starts to crack.  Thank god she has somebody there to help her piece everything back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face in the mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of a few pieces I wrote in the "Electric Green" verse that I didn't really feel like they belonged at any specific place in the verse as a whole. As I've pretty much hit a brick wall when it comes to writing I've decided to post these stories, mostly in hope of getting back into writing the remaining chapters of the verse.

When did this stop being fun? The question floated around in her head as she wiped the soot and dirt off of her face. There was a time when it was all superheroes, and saving the day. Now, all she can see is the powder residue on her fingers, can see the blood that stained the ground. Collateral damage. Children, they were children. Really she knew they weren't that much younger then her, not really, maybe a decade at the most. Teenagers. Teenagers being manipulated, used as a tool to the end. Just like her. At least she'd been old enough to sign away her own soul.

Her hands started to shake as she retched into the sink till all she could do was dry heave. Turning on the faucet she let the water run, washing it all away. Looking up at her own reflection she looked so old. Old before she was thirty. Now she understood her Mom, her need to run from the life she'd been raised in, to do something wild, to live with abandon. That was her childhood, this was her adulthood. Politics, and villains that got worse with each one they put away in Ryckers. She wanted to be the girl in the green dress again. The brilliant physicist's assistant, making sarcastic comments and bleeding into the background. She wanted to be Jax and Mark Lewis' daughter, the girl with flowers in her hair, skipping through the commune. 

Gripping the sides of the sink she couldn't stop the deep sobs that tore out of her throat. She didn't want to be Agent Darcy Lewis, Avengers handler, Coulson's apprentice. She wanted to be Prue, fuck just for a minute she wanted to be Prue again. She wanted a time machine to go back to the morning after she'd met Coulson for the second time and burn that motherfucking plane ticket. She wanted to tell Jane 'yes' when she'd offered her the assistant job. She wanted to have agreed to go with her parents that summer.

“Darcy?” he called from the other side of the door, knocking gently. God she couldn't look at him right now.

“Go away.” she chocked out, screwing up her eyes to keep the tears in. He opened the door anyway, stepping inside. She couldn't look at him. She had a ledger now. Fuck, she never understood what him and Nat meant when they said that. Now she did. She couldn't keep the half laugh half sob in. She felt his arms wrap around her, pulling her against his chest. She turned with a speed she wished she didn't have, beating against his chest, sobbing. He just held her close, silent. Her fists hurt, her entire body ached but she just kept fighting pushing harder till her knees gave out.

He followed her to the ground, pulling her in to his lap as her body shook with sobs. She let him hold her, wanting to feel the warmth that curled around her and made her feel safe. 

They sat there for hours as he held her, till her tears dried and she stopped shaking. He helped her wash her face, change her cloths. She stopped his hands as he was buttoning up her blouse, drawing them up to her mouth. “Do you love me?”

“Yes.” he answered, looking her in the eyes as he said it.

She swallowed thickly, nodding. “What part?” She had to know. Fuck, he'd loved Nat, loved Steve. What was so special about her? Was it what she had learned from his ex-lover, how she reminded him of his first love?

He set her down gently on the toilet, knelling in front of her. “All.” She turned her head away, only to be stopped by a finger on her chin, drawing her eyes back to his. “I fell in love with the girl who bumped into me in that coffee shop, the one who dressed up as the Hulk for Halloween.” he said softly, running his thumb along her jaw. “I love the woman who managed to lie to me for almost two years about her job.” Laying a kiss on her cheek, she felt the breath leave her. “I love the woman who can disassemble a gun and clean it in the time it takes her to make her grandmother's zucchini bread from scratch.” His lips more to her temple. “I'm infatuated with the woman who managed to take a dysfunctional group of outcasts and make them a family.” He moved on to her forehead, his voice becoming more of a breathy whisper then anything else. “I love the woman-child who still likes to dance around the living room to her father's old records, skirt billowing, flowers in her hair.” He placed a kiss on each eyelid, pulling back just slightly afterward so she could see his eyes. God she loved the color of his eyes, clear and slate blue like a winter sky. “I am utterly and completely in love with the amazing, beautiful, caring, giving woman, who for what ever reason said yes when I asked her to be mine even though she'd learned all of my dirty little secrets.” He brought their mouths together in a chaste kiss, his hands still holding her's gently. Pulling back he looked at her, all defenses down, and she could see it, there in his eyes. “I'm in love with Prudence Darcy Lewis, the girl without roots, Agent of SHIELD, who loves James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, from Brooklyn, The Winter Soldier.”

She let out at light sob, her arms snaking out to wrap around his neck and pull him close. “I love all of you, Darce.” he whispered in her ear.

“I love all of you too.” she whispered back, cradling his head as she buried her face in his neck. She wanted to hold him forever, to block out the world and the noise. She pulled back what felt like hours later, standing as she straightened her blouse and wiped the tears from her face. Holding out her hand, she grabbed a hold of his metal one, tightening her grasp when she felt him stiffed. “All.” she said, looking up at him. He nodded, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. Nodding she took a deep breath and headed for the door. She could do this. After all, she had him right beside her.


End file.
